


It’s all in the Script (we swear)

by Spylace



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Cursed Stiles, Fairy Tales, Happy Ending, Laura Lives, M/M, Peter has a green thumb, Peter isn't crazy, because, derek is still a werewolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Derek isn’t the beauty (though he is beautiful) and Stiles isn’t the Beast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s all in the Script (we swear)

**Author's Note:**

> Repost!
> 
> Oh wow, this was supposed to be a short, humorous [fill](http://teenwolfkink.livejournal.com/2069.html?thread=840469#t840469) from [](http://teenwolfkink.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://teenwolfkink.livejournal.com/)**teenwolfkink** , not a 22 page exercise in how teenagers speak. I swear to god it started out as Beauty and the Beast.

“You’re the Beast.” Derek said slowly, so slowly that the words dragged on and by the time he finished, the kid blinked up at him with his mouth open like he’d already forgotten the not-really-a-question. Then he grinned, mouth splitting into a wide, toothy smile bright as a megawatt floodlight. _Christ_ , he thought horrified, he even had dimples.  
   
“Surprise?”  
   
Stiles, as the Beast called himself, offered him an extravagant feast of unseen proportions since Allison Argent’s sweet sixteen—so nothing special though the curly fries were new. He just couldn’t seem to stop eating them. The two got into a slapfest over the last fry to which a clock piece of extraordinary craftsmanship detached itself from the wall to give Stiles the hairy eyeball. Somehow.  
   
And while Stiles was psychologically reamed out for being rude to a guest, a teapot, oddly patterned with lacrosse balls and sticks, gave him the tour of the derelict mansion sitting on top of Beacon Hill.  
 

-

   
“This is not a room.” Derek deadpanned when he opened the door to find a lush forest growing inside the burnt out shell. The teapot immediately ushered him away into the opposite wing where rooms were actually rooms and furnished, no scorch marks or rotting boards threatening to give out beneath his feet at any moment. However, when he touched the doorknob to a suspicious set of double doors, the teapot scalded him with lukewarm coffee, whistling shrilly about what he imagined to be respecting the privacy and the sanctity of a teenager’s room.  
   
Derek wiped his face and glared, the teapot puttering around at his feet, its tiny lid rattling loudly enough to make his teeth hurt. “Whatever”—he said, and wandered off.  
   
The thing was that as his uncle returned from hard nights of travel, a fierce storm overtook him and drove him to shelter beneath the burnt ruins of the mansion on Beacon Hill. When the rain stopped and the clouds parted just enough for a bit of moonlight to shine through, he happened on a wild tangle of roses and broke off an emerald branch for the town widow. Unfortunately, the Beast appeared at the disfigurement of his prized rose bushes, demanding retribution on the trespass of his goodwill and hospitality.  
   
“Dude,” Stiles interrupted, turning the pages with greasy fingers, the _heathen_. “He was totally stealing. Do you know how hard it is to grow good roses around here?”  
   
“It’s California,” Derek pointed out impatiently, “Roses bloom year round.”  
   
“That’s what they want you to think.”  
   
Anyway, because his niece Laura Hale was of a marriageable age and therefore worth more according to the feudal laws that governed dowry and the worth of women in a sexy pair of heels, his uncle had sent him as a half-assed apology in her stead, hoping that his nephew would survive by the sheer grace of his glares and lupine flexibility.  
   
“You didn’t get many hugs when you were a kid did you?”  
   
“Shut up Stiles.”  
   
What he didn’t understand was how his mostly-reasonably-sane uncle had confused _Stiles_ for the Beast.  
   
“It was an honest mistake.” Stiles argued. “There I was, upstairs, watching _Paranormal Activity 3_ with all the lights off when someone rings the doorbell. I have a panic attack and by the time I get downstairs to answer the door, your uncle is in my garden looting my roses. So I yell at him, trip and end up getting covered in mud—it really doesn’t taste half bad as they say it tastes—and he freaks out and starts yelling too. So we yell at each other for a while then...”  
   
“Isn’t _Paranormal Activity 3_ still playing?”   
   
“Err, shutting up.”  
   
Derek glared, feeling cheated out of the four hours and the bottle of Jack it took for him to walk up to the mansion.  
   
“This place isn’t haunted.”  
   
“I guess it could use a bit of sunlight.”  
   
“And there is no beast.”  
   
“Depends on your definition of ‘beast’.”  
   
“I’m going home.”  
   
“Waaaait!” Derek was immediately attacked by ninety pounds of socially stunted teenager on what he suspected was speed. Fortunately, Stiles let go with a small whimper as he stammered out, “I mean, there’s still the curse.”  
   
He might have been more worried had the kid not looked downright _hopeful_ as he said it.  
   
“What. Curse.”  
   
Stiles laughed nervously,  
   
“The one where you’re not allowed to leave after dark?”  
   
There was still a bit of daylight left, the golden sunbeams sifting through yellow-dappled leaves. Cornering the Stiles against the faded wall, Derek drawled out,  
   
“Why, will the big bad wolf get me?”  
   
“Nah, dude likes ‘em young, more virginal... not that I’m calling you a slut or old...” The teen’s eyes widened as he noticed the fangs and the distinctly lupine features. “Oh _my_ god, please don’t eat me.”  
   
Inwardly, Derek’s wolf laughed at the impudent pup, enthralled by the new scent when he thought he had seen everything there was to be seen at Beacon Hills. “What kind of lame-ass curse is that?”  
   
Stiles rubbed his neck uncomfortably and at once, he was struck by how young the teenager was, living alone in an abandoned mansion with pieces of vaguely sentient—though the jury was still out on the teapot—furniture for company. Briefly, he wondered how long the boy had been there and froze when he couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t thought the mansion haunted.  
   
“My mother made it, to protect me.”  
   
Derek winced and took a step backwards, feeling the ridiculous need to apologize. Instead, he breathed out in short bursts, pinching the bridge of his nose as a migraine he hadn’t noticed exploded behind his eyes. Stiles was stills standing there, nervous, the copper of his eyes barely visible through his thick lashes. Derek turned around.  
   
“Right, I’ll be going now.”  
 

-

   
He went home only to be hauled outside by Laura who twisted his ear into a pretzel when he dug his heels in at the door. His uncle, the coward, looked up from pruning his prized azaleas, ducking and avoiding the two siblings like his life depended on it as his sister stacked jars of preservatives, bread, a joint of ham and a thick wedge of cheese into his arms all the while shouting,  
   
“You mean to tell me that you left that poor kid all alone...”  
   
“He’s not alone!”  
   
“...With the beast...”  
   
“Goddammit Laura, he is the Beast!”  
   
“...In a **_burnt down_ ** haunted house!?”  
   
Properly cowed, Derek stood sullen at the edge of the lawn, no longer able to see his feet. “Here,” his sister said blithely, balancing a key lime pie on top of the food pyramid. “Do you think he’d like to come over for dinner sometime? Like tomorrow?” She pulled out a small, blue cart—something he used to pull his sister around in when he was five and completely unaware of the evil that lurked beneath a girl’s mask. “I’m thinking of meatloaf unless he’s allergic to meat. Can you be allergic to meat? Did you see the roses Peter got for Melissa? They’re absolutely gorgeous.”  
   
It was then Derek vowed, never to allow Stiles and his sister to meet.  
 

-

   
Stiles dropped two paint buckets in his hands when he saw him, bypassing greetings and common courtesies entirely as he cooed at the key lime pie in all its whip creamed glory. Thankfully, the awkwardness of their parting had passed and the kid didn’t seem to mind that he had returned hauling in a month’s worth of food in a blue plastic cart. He’d already cracked open a jar of orange marmalade looking as though he had reached nirvana.  
   
Derek cleared his throat and Stiles put it back self-consciously, fidgeting a little as he laughed—“Hey you’re back! So I was thinking about what you said and you’re right. This place could use a bit of lightening up. So I narrowed down the colors to yellow-green and spring green and it’s supposed to keep me focused or something. I’d ask my dad or even Scott but they have no eyes, even if my dad still has that freakish I-know-exactly-what-you-are-doing-I’m-the-Sheriff-look down pat still. Somehow. So what do you think, or maybe you don’t like these green. Do you like green? Did you know that there’s a green called hooker’s green? And a bunch following countries, is it treason if I use 100 Euro green?” Catching werewolf’s eye he said promptly, “Shutting up.”  
   
“I thought you lived alone.” Derek said reproachfully, having caught maybe one out of every ten words that had poured out of the kid’s mouth. He sniffed the air, trying to pick up the scent of another person, a creature, a thing. But if Stiles’ father existed his scent was old and faded, buried beneath the hedge of roses and greenery and the lingering decay. “Your father’s the Sheriff? He lets you live here?”   
   
“Not like we have much choice I mean, he’s a clock. Where could we go?”  
   
“Your father’s the clock.” He repeated, wooden. “The grandfather clock.”  
   
“Yeah, now the only thing he can bust anyone—me—for is being late.” Stiles smiled a little at his own joke and Derek felt his lips tug at the corners in return.   
   
“Scott?”  
   
“The teapot.”  
   
“You make coffee, in your teapot.”  
   
“This isn’t Home Improvement. There’s only a limited number of working sockets in this place.” Stiles gestured wildly. Derek raised his eyes up to the second story window where an eerie blue light played across the glass pane. Already, he could hear the hum of a computer and the slight buzz from where the TV was connected to an outlet.  
   
“And I’m sure you’re using them all wisely.”  
   
Stiles merely grinned,  
   
“Wait till you see what I’ve got.”  
 

-

   
In the morning Derek woke up feeling strangely rested, spread out on the blanket-covered floor. They had played Call of Duty until they passed out near dawn. There was a guest room down the hall that Stiles had offered but he hadn’t wanted to stay in, spooked by lilting giggles after he took a shower. As he rolled to his feet, his wolf begging to be let out and play, he saw Stiles watching him, sleepy-eyed and mussed. He flared his nostrils, smelling contentment, peace and the low-grade arousal in the air. But the boy snuggled back into his nest of mismatched comforters, only the top of his shortly cropped hair sticking out.  
   
“You going now?”  
   
“Not unless you want to have dinner with my family.” Derek answered humorlessly.  
   
Stiles shot out of bed, ending up inside the closet before bouncing back out.  
   
“Woah, aren’t we moving a little fast here? I usually like to know people better before they ask me for dinner, or lunch, or even coffee. Like favorite colors, I can see that green isn’t yours.” He babbled, eyeing Derek from head to toe. “Or type of pasta noodles—maybe you’re a strozzapreti kind of guy—or even your name. Holy shit, I just realized I don’t even know your name.”  
 

-

   
Derek introduced himself over breakfast as Stiles made three-egg omelets, covering them liberally with cheese and bacon bits. When it was time for him to leave he couldn’t help blurting out—“I’ll walk you to school.”  
   
At least he managed to do it in a manly fashion, all growls like he’d been forced to walk through a bed of hot coals. But with his wolf lolling at being fed, and fed well without the necessity of fighting his sister for the last poptart, he felt his ears flush in mute horror as Stiles stared back, uncomprehending.  
   
The boy coughed, dwarfed and waif-like in his overlarge sweater and jeans.  
   
“I can’t.”  
   
“Can’t what?”  
   
“Go to school.”  
   
“Stiles...” Derek said in warning and Stiles shrugged haplessly, a bare shoulder peeking out from under the wide collar.  
   
Derek wanted to bite it.  
   
What.  
   
“I’m cursed remember wolf-boy? I can’t leave.”   
   
“You said I could leave before sunset.”  
   
“You can.”  
   
Slowly, Derek nodded in understanding and lifted his foot from the last step feeling relieved? Disappointed? As he turned around Stiles called out, “Hey Derek, if you ever want to visit... you know...”  
   
Derek snorted but waved at the farewell.  
   
Stiles sat on top of the stairs until he disappeared.  
 

-

   
Derek became something of a regular to the _supposedly_ haunted mansion of Beacon Hill. Every time he went, he’d take Stiles little gifts because no matter how much the internet had been a godsend to the teen, there were still certain things he couldn’t get—clothes that fit for one, and perishable goods for the other.  
   
“Presents for your boyfriend?” Laura asked, siding up to him sleekly like an inquisitive cat. Derek scowled, undeterred in his pillage of their communal fridge. He knew perfectly well that she knew he had paid for the extras like yogurt and a carton of Chunky Monkey.  
   
“He’s not my boyfriend.”  
   
She raised a skeptical eyebrow.  
   
“Right and I’m going to grow up to be a nun. I haven’t seen you this bad since Kate Argent.”  
   
“That bitch” he bit off automatically.  
   
Kate Argent was the mayor’s sister, considered Beacon Hill’s most eligible bachelorette until Laura came along and ruined her streak by growing up hot with a slightly more human personality. For a while, Derek dated her, utterly smitten until he found her cheating on him with a vampire of all things. When he tried to break up with her, he woke up tied naked to his bed with a gag in his mouth. Luckily he was found by his uncle. Who didn’t judge. Because he had no balls.   
   
Not since he started dating Melissa McCall anyway.  
   
Derek considered all this very carefully as he made his way back to Stiles’ house.  
 

-

   
“Why do you keep coming back here?” Stiles asked one night after Princess Peach came in second place for the tenth time in a row.  
   
“Do you not want me to?”  
   
The teenager was just starting to relax into the shared warmth when he suddenly sat up like a jack-in-the-box protesting vehemently,  
   
“No! I mean... I don’t mind, mi casa su casa and all that.”  
   
Lacking a good excuse Derek offered, “It’s Shark Week.”  
   
Stiles grinned,  
   
“Holy shit, you _like_ me.”  
   
Derek smiled back, fangs overlapping his teeth. “Stiles? Shut up.”  
 

-

   
Because he had a feeling that the Sheriff, Stiles’ father, the grandfather clock who kept vigil on the first floor, didn’t like him, Derek used Stiles window as he came and went. It became such a habit that he didn’t realize he’d walked in on Stiles in the middle of changing until the boy noticed him, yelped, tripped over a nonexistent rut in the carpet, ending up in a sprawl at his feet.  
   
“Nice to see you too.” Derek greeted, motioning to grab hold of a pale arm to help him up when he noticed that the teen’s smile had gone wide, his face frozen in a rictus of a smile. Concerned, he reached out with his senses and could smell nothing but an all-consuming terror, cloying, thick and heavy as it settled on his tongue and in his lungs, making him back up until he hit his leg against a chair and fell down on it, white-knuckling the armrests. “Fuck, Stiles, _Stiles_.”  
   
He choked, sliding down to his knees, teeth itching as they stretched down into proper fangs. Hurriedly, he swallowed down breaths of fortifying air and forced himself to stay _still_ —his wolf wary of what the boy might do next.  
   
Resting his forehead on his arms in a sign of submission Stiles croaked out, “Just don’t touch me okay?”  
   
“Stiles,” Derek said evenly, “What the fuck.”  
   
“You’ll be cursed, like dad, like Scott, like...” Stiles sat up, pale and drawn as though he was about to cry. The wolf in him made him start, wanting to comfort the pack mate he hadn’t known was his. But then he remembered the boy’s warning, heart seizing as he realized that all this time, locked in a time capsule deep inside the forest, Stiles remained untouched, never tumbling with a younger litter or wrestling with a brother, grooming a friend or sharing that first kiss.  
   
“...My mom was the magical one you know. A wave of her hand and she could roast an entire chicken, clean the house, recycle. Oh man there was this one time she wanted to turn roses orange for Halloween and they ended up looking like Jackson Pollock barfed all over them but they looked awesome so I kept some pressed in my trigonometry book because seriously, who needs that shit?”  
   
“Stiles” he said, hoarse and Stiles hurriedly added,  
   
“But she was a good witch—a really good witch. She once fixed this girl’s glass heels and made her cough go away for free. And then there was this mouse, a baby mouse, is there a word for a baby mouse? And we spent the whole day looking for his family. I don’t remember what happened.” Stiles said despondently as he got up, pulling on a long-sleeved shirt despite the weather. “I woke up and found my mom gone and my dad looking like that. Maybe if I could just remember...” He swallowed, throat bobbing. “No one came for the longest time.”  
   
Derek’s wolf howled out in sorrow and ached for reasons unknown, for leaving Stiles in the mansion every night with a father who could no longer speak and a teapot that only boiled coffee. And he did something daring. He stepped forward and hugged him, barely a breath of space between his chin and the boy’s hair. Stiles stiffened then melted into the embrace, going limp and boneless in his arms. Derek’s wolf rumbled in approval as he maneuvered them to bed, the old mattress screeching in protest at their combined weight.  
   
After a while Stiles said,  
   
“Thanks”  
 

-

   
Scott squirted coffee on his shoes.  
   
Derek scowled; it was like coexisting with a silent and non-shedding but extremely annoying pet. He kicked at his handle causing the teapot to rock back and forth on his base. Scott trembled and spat up more of the brackish water across the hardwood floor, dragging the droplets around with his spout until they resembled letters and words.  
   
‘U no Allison?’  
   
“Allison Argent?” He ventured, feeling distinctly stupid as the lid clanged down in an affirmative. Communicating with a cursed teapot using an equivalent of watery text messages. That was new. Even for him. “Wait, this house has been haunted as far as I can remember. How the hell do you know the Argent girl?”  
   
The teapot heaved itself into a series of lines.  
   
‘Dare’  
   
Derek rolled his eyes, of course, and almost missed the next series of drag marks that melted into a puddle of hopelessness.  
   
‘Tell her I’m ok :)’  
   
“Are you serious?!” He hissed at the teapot, who clanged multiple times for yes, Yes, YES.  
   
‘O n tell my mom 2’  
   
Derek dragged a hand down his face.  
   
“Look, can you tell me how to help Stiles or not?”  
   
Scott pointed his metallic spout at him as though he was a waste of space. Considering the state Scott was in, he didn’t think the teapot had room to talk—or point, whatever. Scott began to hop away, far mobile than the tall grandfather clock that was Stiles’ father. Derek could literally feel the ivory face and brass gears radiating disapproval. He hurried faster.  
 

-

   
The teapot was quicker than he looked. Derek was grudgingly impressed. By the time he had gotten upstairs, Scott was gone, leaving puddles of coffee water behind that even a blind squirrel could follow. But he saw that the strange pair of doors he had seen, the one that Scott specifically prevented him from entering, was open.  
   
He’d already known that it wasn’t Stiles room—the kid never entered it when he was around. But it looked clean and well-lived in. Stacks of books reached from the scratchy carpet to the ceiling, manuscripts and folders over flowing from shelves. In a corner there were painting supplies and a framed leaf as white as snow. There were various toys and knickknacks to keep someone entertained for days.  
   
But at the windowsill, the glass blown out but closed shut with wooden boards was a single rose, held in a plastic cup. For a moment Derek thought it was a fake, made of paper and bits of glue. The colors were too outlandish, white speckled with gray, dotted with red and striped black, green touching the delicate filaments. And even if it was real, why would it be kept in an empty plastic cup in a room with no sunlight?  
   
“Derek?”  
   
“Fuck” Derek swore as he smacked his head against a cabinet. Guiltily he turned around as Siles flipped the light on, frowning.  
   
“How’d you get in here?”  
   
“The door was open.”  
   
“Huh,” Stiles said, taking the invasion of privacy remarkably well. “Must have been Jackson.”  
   
“Jackson?”  
   
“Yeah he ended up turning into a candleholder so he gets around.”  
   
Derek asked testily, “anyone else I should know about?”  
   
“Lydia but umm she spends most of her time in the guest room? She’s been mad at me since I touched her accidentally and turned her into a mirror.” With growing horror he realized the source of giggles whenever he slept over in the guest room. “Oh and Danny. Danny’s cool.” Stiles bit his lips nervously and Derek realized that his teeth were growing out again, eyes flashing blue. Holding his breath he counted backwards from ten and said,  
   
“Stiles, you have ten... no _five_ seconds to tell me what is going on or I will tear your throat out, with my teeth.”  
   
“You wouldn’t!” Stiles protested, though his hands jumped to his neck clutching air. Derek gave him a pointed look. The teenager cringed and crouched down, picking the colorful petals off the floor and waving them in his face. “It’s a countdown.”  
   
“For what?”  
   
“Until I die okay?” Stiles burst out in exasperation. “You never watched Disney?”  
   
He had and loved Finding Nemo; he wasn’t about to tell that to Stiles however. Derek stared at the kid, really stared at him, awkward, annoying, aggravating, amusing and a whole lot of adjectives that started with ‘a’ Stiles.  
   
“How do I break it?”  
   
Stiles laughed nervously.  
   
“Wow, I was joking when I asked if no one hugged you while you were growing up but seriously? How else would you break a fairy tale curse? It’s not like there’s a road map that says toss three apples into the pot and stir twice counterclockwise...” Derek’s face turned thunderous. “...Ineedatruelove’skiss.”  
   
“Stiles? I understood nothing of that.”  
   
“I need a true love’s kiss.” Stiles repeated, “By Tuesday the fifteenth, midnight preferably.”  
   
“It’s always midnight.” Derek muttered, “Alright, what’s on Tuesday?”  
   
“My sixteenth birthday.”  
   
“And you need a true love’s kiss?” Derek said incredulous. What were they thinking? Stiles was a teenager. He should be worried about getting sex, having sex and the inevitable aftermath. He should be a miserable pile of hormonal sexual frustration, not seeking heartfelt confessions under the moonlight. Sadly, Stiles took this the wrong way.  
   
“I know! I mean you, you’re hot. You have that whole tall, dark and mysterious thing going on—like a canine version of Edward Cullen. Though you might want to wear something other than black, makes you look like you’re selling things and not just drugs. How have you not been kidnapped by GQ? You probably have girls lining up in front of your door or hell, have timeshares on your bed! What... why are you looking at me like that, Derek? DEREK?”  
   
Stiles began hyperventilating, his head tucked between his knees. Patting his back in a conciliatory manner, Derek smirked crookedly, “You think I’m hot?”  
   
Stiles groaned.  
 

-

   
“So Lydia?”  
   
At once, Stiles produced a dreamy, besotted look on his face Derek rolled his eyes at.  
   
“Came up here to be alone after getting dumped. Think she might have been a little drunk.”  
   
“Jackson?”  
   
“Came after Lydia, definitely drunk, found me passed out on the couch and mistook me for her.”  
   
Derek tried not to growl.  
   
“Danny?”  
   
“Came after Jackson... and ended up as a rubber ducky.”  
   
“A rubber ducky?”  
   
“Oh fuck no you didn’t. Do not diss Danny. He’s an awesome rubber ducky.” Stiles snapped, cringing when Derek looked back at him unimpressed. “Even if he won’t answer if I’m attractive or not.”  
   
“You’re alright.” He said absentmindedly. “Scott?”  
   
“A dare, brought a baseball bat and everything.”  
   
“Congratulations,” Derek deadpanned, running his hand through his hair. “If your soul mate lives in Beacon Hills, you’ve just crossed off four names from the population.”  
   
“But it could still be Lydia.” Stiles argued.  
   
“She’s cursed.”  
   
“But I never got to kiss her or anything!”  
   
“Stiles, Lydia Martin is a mirror in your guest room who’s been secretly gawking at me ever since we’ve met. You deserve better.”  
   
“But who doesn’t look at you?” Stiles asked bewildered, “why wouldn’t they?”  
   
Flattered, Derek’s inner wolf preened. Outwardly impassive, he said, “Stiles, it’s not Lydia.”  
   
“You can’t do better than Lydia. You’d have to date like, Princess Leia or Lara Croft.”  
   
“Neither of whom exist in real life.” Derek pointed out.  
   
“Exactly!”  
   
The werewolf sighed and laid back against Stiles’ bed, breathing into the scent of salt and sweat and something startlingly sweet. The teen poked his side. “Dude, inappropriate much?”  
   
“Shut up Stiles.” Grumbling he asked, “are you sure you can’t think of anyone...”  
   
“Who might have grown up to be my significant other?” Stiles continued, dry as dust. “I think the last time I left this house was elementary school, fourth grade, but I guess it could have been Ms. Barnoud who was eighty if she was day. She gave me cookies and let me sit beside Lydia even when she asked for a transfer. Though it could be because the only other open seat was next to Ronald who wasn’t exactly people-friendly you know what I mean? I’m not judging or anything but when you’re a hundred-year-old ghost, don’t you have somewhere better to be than cycling through fourth grade over and over and over again?”  
   
“Christ Stiles, are you even trying?” Immediately, Derek regretted his words no matter how true they were. Because at that point, he would have done anything to wipe the unhappy look on the not-quite-sixteen-years-old boy’s face, the one that spelled ‘I’ve made my peace’, the very same that his grandfather wore when he found out that he was dying of cancer.  
   
His grandmother cried for weeks after his death before steeling herself and reclaiming her duties as the pack’s matriarch. He had never seen anyone grieve so much for one person—he didn’t know what he would do if Stiles died. Another apology bubbling at his throat, Derek bumped shoulders with him. Hopefully, Stiles understood. And almost hesitantly, Stiles bumped back, lightly resting his head against his shoulder. It was heavier than expected but Derek liked its solid weight, the odd trust the boy had in him.  
   
It was nice, being depended upon. He could understand how strong Laura was and appreciated it even though he missed the family they left behind sometimes, where everything had been boisterous and loud, never a peaceful moment with cousins and all manner of relatives crashing in on something. Stiles should have been born into such a family. Once they broke the curse, he’d take him to see them. Now he was starting to sound like his uncle.  
   
“The curse disappears if I’m dead.”  
   
Derek surged forward, pinning Stiles against the mattress, his arms framing his face. He breathed hotly, sharing the air between them, eye open and wide, feeling their hearts beating in tandem through their clothes. He leaned down when Stiles turned away, bucking and twisting like a downed deer.  
   
“Hey, whoa, holy shit, what the fuck Derek?!”  
   
“Hold. Still.” he snarled, eyes flashing blue. “If the curse breaks when you’re dead, this won’t matter.”  
   
Stiles gaped.  
   
“NO!”  
   
“What?”  
   
“I said no!”  
   
Derek stopped, cocking his head. Stiles seemed to be struggling, his lips drawn in a line. He was no longer trying to break free but had his fingers coiled in the sheets as though willing for the ground to swallow him whole.  
   
And then—“ _I don’t want this_.”  
   
In a blink of an eye, Derek was at the window feeling as though someone had gutted him and left behind only entrails to follow. For once his wolf was completely silent, a cold, crisp whiteness blanketing his thoughts. All throughout, Stiles remained silent, smelling like guilt, relief and sin all rolled into one single package. “...not like this.”  
   
“I can’t.” Stiles stared, his expression unreadable. “I’m not letting you die.”  
 

-

   
Except he totally did.  
   
Derek Hale spent the last weekend of Stiles’ life counting dots on his ceiling, the miniscule specks of dust that told of his frequent absence. And each dust mote became a film or TV show Stiles wouldn’t stop talking about but would never get to see like Dark Knight Rises or Twilight: Breaking Dawn. No doubt Stiles’ father would kill Derek once he regained the use of prehensile thumbs. Derek would kill Derek too.  
   
Angry stomps heralded his sister’s arrival and Derek darkly added ‘ _traitor_ ’ to the list of his uncle’s many known attributes. It seemed as though Melissa McCall had begun to reciprocate and in return, his uncle was determined to see everyone—or just him—celebrate the miracle of love. Laura kicked the door open, thus saving him from falling into the bleak spiral of that thought, looking as though she’d done her makeup under a gas light.  
   
“I don’t want to hear it Laura.” He grunted, rolling over. She smelled like smoke, booze and cows. Setting her gold-plated earrings down on the bedside table, she leaned over, the mattress sinking beneath her weight. She rested her chin on his heaving ribs, gently stroking his hair.  
   
“Some sister I am, didn’t even notice my baby brother growing up.”  
   
She slapped him on his ass, making him start. “Go to him you idiot.”  
   
Derek shuddered at the obvious command,  
   
“I can’t...”  
   
“But he’s all alone up there.”  
   
“I told you, he’s got...”  
   
“Boys are so stupid.” Laura said crossly, “It doesn’t have to be all hearts and flowers, there are other ways of claiming mates you know.”  
   
Derek rolled his eyes.  
   
“That’s called rape Laura.”  
   
“And the other word you’re looking for is ‘statutory’, not that it’s at all in the past month stopped you from courting Tiles.”  
   
“Stiles”  
   
Laura gave him a squint, “This is why I’m Team Edward, no hang ups about age, or the fact that they’re both virgins...”  
   
Derek squawked indignantly, “I’m not a virgin!”  
   
But his sister was grinning as though the battle was won, handing him the leather jacket she ‘borrowed’ while tipping cows. Derek wrinkled his nose at the smell but shoved his arms through the sleeves, muttering about groceries and how Stiles probably starved to death in the short-long 48 hours he had been gone. Cheerily, Laura offered,  
   
“Do you need me to come with?”  
   
He hesitated. “No. Just... don’t come looking for me if I don’t come back immediately after.”  
   
Nodding, she gave him a tiny peck to his cheek.  
   
“I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”  
   
“Me too.”  
 

-

   
Derek showed up at the front door with a cake and Stiles let him in with a knowing grin, carefully sidestepping Scott the teapot who poured steaming coffee all over his shoes like some demented Chihuahua from hell. The first night to the rest of their lives, they shared the cake on the couch, arguing over the merits of excess icing and without, played board games and fell asleep barely an inch from each other on the couch under the Sheriff’s watchful... something.  
   
Stiles didn’t look too well. Dozing, he ran a finger down the boy’s back, trying to think of anything that might ward off death. By morning, he had a fever.  
   
“I’m not dead yet.” Stiles pouted, spitting the thermometer back out. His father inched forward, a steady presence at his side, worried enough that he struck three half past four.  
   
Carefully reading the label on the twice-expired flu meds, Derek muttered, “Signs of delusion...”  
   
“Hah, hilarious.”  
   
“You’re welcome.” Derek grunted, handing the teen an ice pack. Scott whistled depreciatingly, the candleholder which he assumed was Jackson sputtered, dripping wax all over the hardwood floor. “Your temperature’s up again, take off your clothes.”  
   
“Your bedside manner is lacking.” Stiles opined pathetically as he shimmied out of his shirt, exposing miles and miles of flushed skin.  
   
“So is your sense of shame.”  
   
“I’m dying, what’s your excuse?”  
   
Derek tried not to flinch. He replied evenly, “The same as yours I guess.”  
   
Stiles raised a skeptical eyebrow.  
   
“So you plan on staying here, holding my hand until I...”  
   
“Yeah, I do.”  
   
Strangely, Stiles seemed to accept this. “Okay”  
 

-

   
By nightfall, Stiles had only grown worse, his fever soaring until in a fit of delirium, he threw Danny the rubber ducky at Derek’s head. Danny didn’t seem to take offence. In fact, every cursed object in the mansion had slowed down, even the constant tick tock of the grandfather clock sounded warped as though the curse was taking more than a son, a friend, and a brother away from them.  
   
Desperate, Derek carried Stiles upstairs into the bathroom and turned the shower on set to cold. Soon after, Stiles began to float looking all for the world like a corpse if it were not for the intense heat radiating from his skin. Cursing Kate Argent, who was the bane of his existence and the probable cause of Stiles’ curse, to hell and back just so he could rip out her throat and throw her corpse to the dogs, Derek got into the tub, careful not to touch him skin on skin when he thought—what the hell.  
   
“Dude,” Stiles stuttered, his teeth chattering from the cold. “You can’t! You’ll get...”  
   
Derek wrapped his arms around the boy, resolving to take Stiles away and burn the mansion down just so none of them would ever come back.  
   
“No I won’t.”  
   
At the stroke of midnight, because their timing was crappy like that, Derek crushed their lips together, spilling water all over the tiled floor as the boy resisted then kissed back just as fierce. But Stiles soon weakened, his heartbeat slowed and his fevered breath no longer brushing against his lips. As Stiles rested his head on his shoulder, horrifyingly still, Derek wondered if he had been wrong, that despite whatever feelings he had for him, he wasn’t Stiles’ one true love. And maybe he should have taken his sister up on her offer because there wasn’t a person alive outside the immediate family, armed with the knowledge of her teenage years, PMS and a pregnancy scare, who wouldn’t spring a boner just by sitting next to her. Then he realize Stiles was trembling, his eyelids fluttering in distress as he groped for a purchase and held Derek close in a watery embrace.  
   
Derek soothed him as best he could; holding his breath and counting down the precious seconds it took to form a full minute. The last time he had been held like this was when he had the chicken pox and was convinced that he would wake up as a were-chicken. But he had yet to turn into an errant piece of furniture like a table or god forbid—a _napkin_. He began to breathe easier and dropped a kiss on top of Stiles’ head.  
   
“Stiles, you’d better not be getting snot all over my shirt...”  
   
“The romance is gone.” Stiles choked mournfully, tearing himself away from Derek long enough to look at him carefully, all hesitation and adolescent uncertainty. “You mean it?”  
   
“It wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t would it?”  
   
And slowly, Stiles grinned, looking very much like the boy he met one day in summer when he was sure that he was to become the town pariah’s not-so-virgin-ass-bride.  
   
“Me too”  
   
From outside the door a voice called out,  
   
“If you guys are done making out...!”  
   
“ **What?!** ”  
   
Stiles winced.  
   
“Lydia!”  
   
“ _Shhh_... you guys are ruining the moment!”  
   
They exited the bathroom sopping wet and holding hands, Stiles leaning heavily against Derek as his legs wobbled like a newborn fawn’s. Everyone, except the Sheriff who looked as though he had bitten into something sour, cheered at their appearance, fussing over Stiles—even Lydia, whom Stiles swore hated him for turning her into an immovable mirror in the guest room.  
   
The Sheriff took his free hand, shaking it and probably breaking a few bones. He stared hard at Derek, like he was trying to decide he was going to be angry about him and his son. No person was good enough for a man’s firstborn.  
   
“Son, I don’t know how I can ever thank you. However, as a father and the sheriff of Beacon Hills, I am obligated to tell you that I have a gun and plenty of acres behind my house. If you make my son cry, I will make you cry.”  
   
Embarrassed, Stiles whined “Daa _aaaaaad_!” still holding Derek’s hand.  
   
Derek smiled.  
   
“Deal.”  
   
   
 


End file.
